The Electric Distribution Program engages a broad group of stakeholders in program planning, identification of high-priority technology gap areas, and joint participation in research, development, demonstration, and deployment (RD³) activities. The partnerships involve: 

Partnerships with Other Federal Programs
Federal partnerships include participation with the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) to promote and install distributed energy systems at Federal facilities; the Office of Energy Assurance and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate to coordinate infrastructure security development; the Hydrogen, Fuel Cells & Infrastructure Technology Program and the Industrial and Buildings Technologies Programs to identify co-funding opportunities for assessing distributed energy systems in these sectors; the State Energy Program to increase awareness, promote benefits, and remove barriers to distributed energy; and the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program to reach out to small businesses. 

Partnerships with State Programs
Current partners include the California Energy Commission (CEC) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). The Program continues to make efforts to outreach to other State programs and State public utilities commissions. 

Partnerships with Industry
The Program partners with standards organizations and industry alliances to promote implementation of advanced technologies for grid modernization and associated standards. The partnering activities with the following entities are either supported with cost-sharing from DOE or are being conducted under joint planning and close coordination.

Advanced Grid Applications Consortium (GridApp™). A consortium of utilities that join together to help modernize the U.S. electrical grid. GridApp™ provides a fast-track process for engineering development, demonstration, and validation of selected high-impact technologies with the mission of transitioning best technologies and best practices into broader use by member utilities.

GridWise™ Alliance. A consortium of public and private stakeholders to provide real-world technology solutions to support the U.S. Department of Energy vision of a transformed national electric system.

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Standards Coordination Committee (SCC) 21. Development of the 1547 series of standards for interconnecting distributed resources with electric power systems is ongoing. The development process is through open Work Group (WG) meetings, and standards are established based on a consensus process.

IntelliGrid(SM) Consortium. A consortium, created by the Electric Power Research Institute, to help the industry pave the way to the IntelliGrid vision of the power grid of the future.

Partnerships with National Laboratories and Universities
The Program works with national laboratories (notably, NREL and PNNL) to develop an integrated national laboratory support effort that assembles the capabilities of the various labs and makes them available to manufacturers and end users for testing and evaluation of the performance of various systems integration designs. In addition, through the National Science Foundation, the Program engages universities in collaborative research in design, testing, and analysis of the Microgrid concept.

The Superconductivity program provides the framework for teaming among  utilities, manufacturers, universities, and national laboratories for the complex endeavors of developing high-temperature superconductivity (HTS) for use in transmission lines or motors or generators.

The Superconductivity Partnership Initiative

These teams fall into two broad categories: the Superconductivity Partnership Initiative (SPI) and technology partnerships. SPI teams consist of representatives from utilities, manufacturers, and national labs. They work together to develop HTS electric power equipment such as transmission lines, motors, generators, and fault-current limiters. Technology partnerships involve establishing working relationships between the national labs and industry members through a variety of mechanisms, such as Cooperative Research and Development Agreements. To date, industry and national laboratories have initiated more than 90 collaborative projects and have completed more than 55. A recently produced brochure, "Partnerships for Superconducting Technologies" (PDF 1.2 MB), contains summaries of many of these projects.